More evidence that this isn’t 1994
The economy is in tough shape and every historic trend suggests that that’s bad news for Democrats, the party in power.
But a new spate of polls and surveys out this week suggests that comparisons to the tidal wave election of 1994, when the Republican Party swept to power, are shaky at best.
The reasons are pretty simple: This time around, American voters are mad at everybody.
Here’s a list, from the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, of the most popular and well-liked political institutions in descending order.
The number reflects “total positive” sentiment:
Michelle Obama (50%), Barack Obama (46%), the Democratic Party (33%), the tea party movement (30%), the Republican Party (24%), Nancy Pelosi (21%), Harry Reid (10%).
Obviously, these are tough numbers for the Democrats, when the two top congressional leaders are that low. This is a congressional election, after all.
But remarkably, the GOP has seen its ratings continue to slide as well. Here’s how the Wall Street Journal summed it up:
The sour national mood appears all-encompassing and is dragging down ratings for the GOP too, suggesting voters above all are disenchanted with the political establishment in Washington.
Just 24% express positive feelings about the Republican Party, a new low in the 21-year history of the Journal’s survey.
If nothing else, this survey makes it clear just how important the tea party movement has become for the modern Republican Party, propping up its fortunes and giving a desperately needed shot of charisma and caffeine.
But it also makes clear just how far the GOP itself has to go in terms of rebranding and redefining itself, regardless of November’s outcome.
Tags: election10
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PNElba:
I don’t know where you get these slogans from. Dem can’t cut taxes?
I didn’t say Mr. Obama CAN’T cut them, I just pointed out he DIDN’T cut them, and seemed to signal that he did. (at least you seem to think he did).
Smoke and mirrors from the current group in the White House.
That’s not to say that Dems are that way always, so don’t say I said that.
This president, this time, did not cut your taxes, and made it look like he did.
jdm,
regarding reagan’s tax cuts, you do know that correlation and causation are totally different things, right?
as for obama’s tax cut, of course he cut taxes. a good third of the stimulus consisted of tax cuts! see here, for example.
Betty, I’m all for cutting the income tax, that’s fine. But the harder you work and more you make of yourself the more you are punished. That’s a fact.
Hey PNElba, Bush cut my taxes and now you and Obama want to get rid of those cuts. How does that benefit me or any other married person with kids? The child tax credit will be cut and the marriage penalty returns. Oh that’s right, it JUST benefits the richest Americans. I have to keep telling myself that.
Bret, I need to comment on one thing you said.
The amount of money a person is paid is not directly connected to how hard they work.
I would say some very hard working people to get paid far less than some who get gobs of money.
Betty, I have never cheated on my taxes. In fact, I don’t itemize deductions because I don’t make that much. If I ever did, I still wouldn’t bother. And that would include charitable donations because I don’t believe charitable donations should even be allowed as a deduction. I think there are too darn many deductions.
I would be in favor of a tax form so simple that H & R Block would be put out of business.
And yes, I do my own. I always have.
Bret, the way you complain I didn’t realize you make over $200,000 a year. I’m fairly sure you know that the proposal is to only reinstate the 39.6% tax bracket. Other brackets would remain the same.
With all this yammering about taxes I think people are missing one thing: federal taxes are at their lowest level since before WWII. If anything, federal taxes are too low.
There is a huge difference between wealth and income. Many wealthy people have little income. The bottom 60% of households possess only 4% of the nation’s wealth while it earns 26.8% of all income. Betty makes a good point when she suggests taxing wealth rather than income.
Comon’ P, if the Bush tax cuts are repealed the child tax credit gets cut in half and the marriage penalty returns and that’s on everyone in all tax brackets.
http://www.atr.org/six-months-untilbr-largest-tax-hikes-a5171#
Bret, I agree excise taxes are worse than sales taxes but disagree with the idea that the harder you work the more you are taxed. Reason – I think you are mixing up how hard someone works with how much someone is paid.
Betty, I do not cheat on my taxes. I do my own taxes and take only the standard and personal deductions. If I were the King of the USA, I would set up the tax forms so that everyone paid their taxes the way I do. This would put H&R Block and all the accountants out of business because everyone could do their own taxes in 15 minutes or less.
bret,
i think that pnelba’s point is that when you write
Hey PNElba, Bush cut my taxes and now you and Obama want to get rid of those cuts
you’re wrong. obama doesn’t want to get rid of that part of the bush tax cuts. he just wants to let the tax cuts for wealthy people expire.
But HT, if you do away with half the child tax credit and reinstate the marriage penalty you affect more than just those rich sobs. And it still doesn’t solve the basic issue of debt and spending, does it? the top 20% of tax payers already pay 90% of the taxes. Just how much blood are you intending to get from that stone?
I realize I’m in the minority, but to me the idea of punishing ANYONE through taxes is fundamentally wrong. Taxes should be collected only enough to cover a balanced budget, not to be used as an inexhaustible pool of free money for the politicians in charge.
well bret i have to confess i don’t have the time or energy at the moment to look up the details of what’s in the democrats’ tax proposals, but my understanding is that the child tax credit and the marriage penalty (whatever you mean by that — i’m not sure of its precise definition) won’t be touched, at least for individuals making under $200,000 or couples making under $250,000.
more to the point, however, the joint committee on taxation recently released its analysis of the “democrats’ plan” vs. keeping the full bush tax cuts in place. and, surprise!, the washington post reports that the democrats’ plan gives a bigger total cut at every income level below $200,000. now, i might be totally wrong about the child tax credit and the marriage penalty, and it would be great if you want to go into the weeds of the jct’s report and tell us what’s going on with them. but the upshot of the link is that it doesn’t matter — the democrats give a bigger total cut to people like you and me (well, except for the fact that i’m living in canada right now!), and it’s the total cut that matters.
My understanding is that the Bush tax cut law would remain the same except for increasing the top rate for those making over $200,000. Since the other tax brackets would be kept the same (including the new 10% bracket) those making over $200,000 would still pay less than they did under the old tax brackets. If that is not the case I’d love to see the evidence.
Well HT, I’ve looked around a bit too and can’t find anything solid that says exactly what they propose doing. Some reports say they want to just up the marginal rate of the top .7% of wage earners taking in an additional $678 billion over 10 years. That will cover just about half of what Obamacare will cost us in the same time period according to the CBO (http://spectator.org/blog/2010/05/11/cbo-adds-115-billion-to-obamac) so there will still be a net loss. Of course no cuts in spending are planned and we’ve got pay for this and our increasing debt load, so my faith in our gov’t not repealing more of the Bush Tax Cuts than the Dems claim is shaky at best. Furthermore, I wonder what the effect will be if they do “just” the top .7% increases? Will this somehow spur job growth or save some jobs? Will it spur investment
and help lower our deficits? No, I don’t think it will. But it will provide some political payback to those in the class envy crowd that supported Obama and it will give just a little more cash to the politicians who so desperately need it to further their goals and re-election.
The fact still remains this does nothing to solve any of our problems. We need to bring our troops home and cut our defense outflow. We need to either cut bait or fish as far as Social Security goes. We have to establish a solid backing for our dollar and stop printing Monopoly money. We have to either get rid of the current income tax as we know it or just accept that those in the middle class are going to get raped for the foreseeable future. We have to cut social program spending and outright pork and concentrate on infrastructure, new energy sources and consider some protectionist trade policies for a period of time (and no, I don’t like saying that). We have to stop the subsidies and artificial price supports and caps in agriculture and other industries. We simply have to reduce gov’ts part in our markets and gov’ts part in business where gov’t can affect the market to it’s advantage (Chrysler/GMC/banking).
We have to start now because it’s going to take a long time fix the mess we’re in already.